


Family Ties

by Severina



Series: The Condemnedverse [9]
Category: Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Community: tamingthemuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-23
Updated: 2012-09-23
Packaged: 2017-11-14 20:59:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/519445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Severina/pseuds/Severina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If this is love, he wants no fucking part of it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Family Ties

**Author's Note:**

> Written for LJ's tamingthemuse community, for the prompt 'what does not kill us makes us old and cranky before our time'
> 
> * * *

Daryl doesn’t remember taking the kid down to the grass.

One moment they are standing in the field. He knows that he’s holding on to the kid like his life depends on it, fingers digging into the meat of Glenn’s biceps hard enough to bruise. He remembers releasing his hold so that he can wrap his arms around Glenn’s back to tug him closer. Remembers the kid’s arms going around his neck, shivering when Glenn’s fingers trail   
through the sweat-soaked hair at the nape of his neck; remembers taking a ragged breath before deepening the kiss. 

The next thing he knows they are laying in the long grass in the clearing, his body half-covering Glenn’s. And it don’t feel anything like he’s used to, sharp angles and hard lines where he’s accustomed to soft curves. He can feel the thick press of Glenn’s dick against his thigh, and the feel of it makes him dizzy, makes something flutter like bird’s wings in his gut, makes his heart beat faster than it oughta. So he plants his palm on the warmth of Glenn’s hip, his T-shirt pushed up to reveal that slice of sun-warmed skin, and can’t muster the nerve to move it any closer. 

He’s not even sure he wants to. 

Not yet.

Glenn’s fingers twist in his shirt, and Glenn’s mouth is hot and wet, and Daryl’s body takes over. He presses closer, slides his thigh between Glenn’s legs and this is all he needs, this right here, just this, just Glenn beneath him and that mouth, that--

Glenn’s hand flattens on his chest, pushes hard. It takes a moment for him to realize that the kid wants him to stop, and he blinks, pushes up onto his elbows. Squints down at the kid and Glenn is… frowning, and it comes to him that maybe he fucked this up, maybe Glenn wasn’t ready for this, maybe things are different when it’s with two men and--

“Do you hear that?” Glenn whispers.

It’s only when Glenn’s eyes dart to the edge of the woods that Daryl hears it, too. 

He pushes off from Glenn in one quick movement, his own eyes darting across the flattened grass until they land on his crossbow, still leaning against the damn stump a good fifteen-twenty feet away. He curses under his breath as he dives for it, is still ten feet away from it when the first of the walkers breaks from the tree line.

It’s a woman, or it used to be. Long blonde hair still straggling from a mostly bare scalp, one arm ending in glistening tendons just below the bend of the elbow. Grey face, grey clothes, single grey hand ending in jagged nails reaching out, grey lips pulled back from snarling, snapping teeth. 

He’s got the bow in hand by the time the geek takes another three or four steps into the meadow, but he can’t focus on her too much because in the time it takes him to string an arrow another five of the fuckers stumble out of the woods behind her.

Glenn pushes up to his knees, reaches behind him for his backpack, and it comes to Daryl how messed up he is, how goddamn fucked he is if he didn’t even see even see the damn curved blade sticking out from the pack, didn’t even notice the kid was wearing a backpack in the first place.

Didn’t keep his weapon close. Didn’t pay attention to his surroundings. Didn’t focus on what was right in front of his fucking face. Stupid. Weak. 

He can almost hear Merle laughing. 

He takes out the first geek– the woman with the stringy hair – with a nicely placed arrow, but by that time the rest of them have scented fresh meat, are staggering quickly, snapping at the air. He drops the bow and draws out his knife instead. He tries to step in front of the kid, draw their attention, but the kid ain’t having it, snaps something at him that Daryl can’t understand because he’s too focused on the swing of the blade, on the crunch as it pierces decaying skull, on the spill of blackish goo that covers his hand before he can withdraw the knife and swing it toward the next.

He takes out two more before he dances to the side, darts underneath one rotting clutching hand to bury his knife in the eye socket of the geek behind it, figure he has enough time to dance back before the first bastard regains its footing. He’s so focused on that first walker that he doesn’t notice the one that grabs him from the side until it’s already got a good grip on his vest, skeletal fingers digging in to the thick material and holding on tight. He slams an elbow back into its face, hears the snap of bones and cartilage breaking as the thing’s head pivots back, but it keeps its grip. Daryl twists in its hold, and from the corner of his eye he sees Glenn rushing in from the side, getting entirely too close to comfort to the damn geek as he swings his scythe and then the hold falters, the thing dragging on him for a brief moment before the fingers finally release and it falls back and Daryl can breathe again.

He allows himself two quick breaths before circling, scanning the tree line, listening, knife still at the ready. It’s only when the birds start up again – damn birds, singin’ like they ain’t got a care in the world, don’t have a fucking clue that everything has changed, everything – that he lets his shoulders relax, lets his guard down just a little. He slips the knife back into its sheath before surveying the meadow.

There are nine dead walkers in the clearing.

He starts to raise a hand to face to wipe away the sweat, stops only when he sees that it’s still covered in the thick, blackish sludge of walker blood. He wipes it on his jeans instead, and when he hears the slither of Glenn’s blade on fabric, turns to see him sliding his own weapon home into the backpack. 

The kid sees him watching, shrugs and smiles. “Not exactly the way I figured this morning would turn out,” he says. He bends to retrieve his baseball cap from the ground, brushes it off before placing it back on his head. “Walkers as cockblockers. Who’d’ve thought?”

“You think this is funny? This is funny to you?”

“It’s—“

“You almost got your scrawny ass killed!” 

Glenn huffs out a breath. “I’m perfectly capable of taking care of my scrawny ass, thanks.”

Daryl looks away from the kid’s glare, tries to think back to the last time he and Glenn fought side by side, ‘fore things started getting messed up in his head. Been weeks now, probably back at the farm, searching for Randall with Shane’s lies hangin’ over their heads. That time a walker got the jump on him too, in the dark, his arrow flying wide when the thing that used to be Randall attacked them. And that time it was the kid that took him out, pulling the damn geek off him, putting it down with no thought to what might happen if he failed.

That time, Daryl remembers, he’d congratulated the kid on a good kill and never thought another thing about it. But now. What happened now is… different. Now he can still feel the walker’s grip on his side, hear the creak of the leather as its decaying fingers flexed, smell the thing’s fetid breath. Now he can see how close Glenn came, sticking his damn arm practically underneath the motherfucker’s snapping jaw in order to slice the geek’s head clean off. 

And no matter how it really turned out, he can so easily picture the thing lunging forward, _see_ that rotted jaw clamping shut over the soft flesh of Glenn’s arm, and the thought of it makes his stomach roil. That is his now.

If this is love, he wants no fucking part of it.

Daryl looks up, meets Glenn’s eyes. “You don’t ever risk your life for me, you got that?”

“You’re worth risking my life for.”

Daryl shakes his head, paces in the worn grass. 

“Yes, you are,” Glenn continues. “I think so. Carol thinks so. Rick. T-Dog. Any of us would put our lives on the line to save yours. Just like you’d risk your life to save ours.” Glenn shrugs. “Sorry, Daryl. Heroism isn’t restricted to just you.”

“This ain’t about bein’ a hero!”

“No, it’s not,” Glenn agrees. “It’s about being a family. You’re part of ours. Get used to it.”

He’s gonna wear a hole clean down to China, like his ma used to say, so Daryl forces himself to stop pacing, tucks his hands beneath his underarms to stop their fidgeting.

“And I can take care of myself,” Glenn adds mildly.

“I know that!” Daryl snaps.

“Fine,” Glenn says. 

Daryl opens his mouth, closes it again. He wishes he had the words to explain how it’s different now, different with Glenn, how maybe he was holding on so tight before because Glenn is his world, ‘cause maybe his life really does depend on Glenn staying safe, staying whole. The words stick in his throat, though, his brain gettin’ all mixed up with the voices of his old man, of Merle, and though his jaw works he can’t seem to force anything past his lips.

But from the way Glenn’s looking at him, he thinks maybe the kid understands. 

And when the severed head of the geek Glenn risked his life to decapitate opens its jaw and snarls, he’s saved from saying anything that might sound remotely pussy at all.

“Awww, the hell? It’s gotta be the head!”

“Fuck, I _know_ ,” Glenn says. He reaches behind him to slide his deadly blade from its sheath, then looks from the snapping jaw to Daryl, cocks his head. “You want to do the honours?”

Daryl steps forward, halts a few steps away from the walker even though his hand is twitching for the knife. “Nah,” he says. “You got it.”


End file.
